


Leave-Takings

by mcicioni



Category: The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24565096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcicioni/pseuds/mcicioni
Summary: Yet another riff about the first night after Chris and Vin leave the village. To sleep, perchance to dream.
Relationships: Chris Adams and the other six
Comments: 13
Kudos: 9





	Leave-Takings

**Author's Note:**

> For FB, who died last week.

They are rolled up in their blankets, on each side of the fire, as close to it as safety will allow, because autumn nights are cold in the mountains of the Sierra Madre. Vin is lying on one side, wrapped up to his neck, only his face visible, his only sign of life some regular soft snoring. Chris is lying on his back, breathing slowly, resigned to the fact that sleep will not come to him. He pushes his hat away from his face and looks ahead at the profiles of the mountains, and up at the Mexican sky, deep black and crowded with stars.

They have ridden all day, without stopping to discuss where and why. Drifting north, for no reason other than north’s the other way from the memories of the last six weeks. They know that tomorrow they’ll cross the Rio Grande, but they don’t know how soon after that they’ll part company. 

Chris wouldn’t mind riding with Vin for a while, but he’s not going to ask. Vin is younger, footloose, a chancer. And Chris is used to being on his own, he hasn’t needed anyone for the past ten years or so. It’s enough that for the time being they are both here, by the same creek where they had spotted Chico, laughed at the freshly-caught fish dangling from the tree branch, wordlessly agreed that the kid could come along instead of riding behind or ahead. Chris smiles at the memory, and wishes Chico a good life with his quiet, brave girl, and with the people he finally acknowledged as his own.

As for the four others – death is always around the corner in their trade, and every hired gun knows that his eternal rest will be at worst in the open country, bones picked clean by coyotes and buzzards, and at best in some cemetery, with one or two people to tend the grave for a few months. Chris lets out a slow, soft breath. He would have liked to exchange a couple of words about this with Harry, his old friend. Or maybe O’Reilly. Vin too, but he may have one or two illusions left.

He shakes his head at himself. Can’t talk anything over with Harry and O’Reilly, that’s what being dead means. And no point in dwelling on these thoughts – if you don’t accept that a gunman’s life is usually over by the time he’s fifty, you may as well use your gun for the last time and blow your brains out. He closes his eyes, willing sleep to come and free him from all thoughts.

 _Some graves will be tended for a long time. Some of us will be remembered._ O’Reilly’s deep voice is quiet, a faint trace of a Mexican lilt to his sentences.

Chris blinks, then looks up. O’Reilly is squatting beside him. Harry is sprawled next to him, hands folded under his head. Lee is standing close to the fire. Britt is sitting cross-legged against a tree trunk.

Chris nods a greeting and doesn’t ask any questions. He knows that this is just a stupid dream, created by his pointless thoughts. He doesn’t mind. He’ll let the dream run through to its end, and then he’ll wake up.

 _And if we’re not remembered, it don’t matter all that much anyway._ Harry looks straight at him, his eyes serious, no cunning twinkle, no devious schemes.

Since he’s dreaming, Chris can speak freely, without holding anything back. “I got you all killed,” he says bluntly. 

_That’s crap,_ Harry says just as bluntly.

“Harry, you never understood a damn thing when you were alive, and you still don’t now that you’re dead. I was the one who decided that we should all leave the village to steal Calvera’s horses. My mistake.”

 _We all make mistakes. Including you, Chris._ Britt, short and to the point. _And afterwards, each of us made the choice to ride back. Without asking you._

 _If we could go back in time, we’d do what we did all over again._ Lee’s Southern drawl is, as usual, cool, quite – but not completely – detached. _Down to our last bullets._

 _If we had lived, we’d be making more mistakes,_ O’Reilly adds. There’s a hint of Irishness in his words. Half and half, even now. _The village’s better off, that’s what matters. And all of us, no exception, came out of this better than when we started out._

“Point taken,” Chris says shortly. “But you’re still dead.” He stops, looks them over. Different men, different lives, different choices, apart from their last one. He doesn’t know how to ask politely, so he asks directly. “Where the … where _are_ you now?”

Lee smiles ironically. _It’s peaceful. Also rather borin. Maybe that’s what we deserve, after spendin our lives lookin for all kinds of action._ He pauses for a moment. _It helps that our last piece of action was, on the whole, virtuous._

“And you all turned up here because …?”

 _To say goodbye, I guess. Which we didn’t have a chance to do in the village. And to tell you to take care of yourself._ O’Reilly is half dry and half warm, as he was in life. Half and half.

 _And to give you a word of advice._ Britt’s impassive face is just broken by the hint of a smile. _Snoring Beauty over there. You might do worse than ride with him for a spell. He’s willing to follow you, and he got a head on his shoulders._ Chris blinks: this is probably the longest speech any of them ever heard Britt make.

 _You’re a good man to follow, but sometimes you take crazy risks._ Harry again, openly fond. _You gotta have someone to watch your back._

“That all you came to say?” He’d like this conversation to last longer, he’d like to still be part of this mismatched set of men. But dawn will come soon, the dream has to end.

His companions gather close together and start fading away.

_So long, Chris._

_Been good to know you._

_See you – not too soon, we hope._

_If you ain’t headed any place special, try crossing the Rio Grande and hitting Las Cruces. Last we heard, there may be some action there._

_Have a drink or two to us._

And where they were there’s just cold empty air, and loneliness stabs through Chris’s guts. He runs a hand over his head, puts his hat on, looks over at Vin, kicks the embers of the fire back to life and looks around for the coffee pot.

Vin grunts, stirs, and wakes up. He blinks, shakes his head, gazes around with a dazed expression, then mutters “Mornin” and quickly gets up, goes straight to the creek and dunks his head in. He wipes his face on his shirt tails and walks back to their camp, still looking disoriented. 

“Sleep OK?” he asks casually. 

“Yeah. Kind of. You?”

“Kind of,” Vin says, and starts rolling up his blankets without meeting Chris’s eyes. He hesitates for a moment. “Any good dreams?”

“No,” Chris lies quickly, easily. He pours coffee into their tin mugs and waits until both have a couple of hot, reviving mouthfuls inside them. “If you’re not headed anywhere special, how about we ride together for a couple of weeks? There may be some action left in New Mexico.”

Vin gives him a small lopsided grin. Chris cannot see all that clearly in the uncertain first light, but he has the impression that Vin’s neck is growing a little pink under his suntan. “Funny you should ask that. I was about to ask you if you’d ever been to Las Cruces.”


End file.
